A divisive Karl Rove keeps a firm grip on the spotlight

JULIE MASON, Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Published 5:30 am, Friday, April 6, 2007

WHITE House political adviser Karl Rove certainly called the last election wrong. But don't worry — his luster as a prognosticator may have faded, but he's still plenty busy, as shown by the recent flap over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

"I'm MC Rove," the White House deputy political director declared in a satirical rap skit at the recent Radio and Television Correspondents dinner in Washington.

Rove does remain in many ways the White House master of ceremonies — insofar as that includes working out how to restore the Republican Party's control of Congress and looking beyond the Bush administration toward securing the president's legacy.

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It is not coincidental that the U.S. attorneys fired by the Justice Department late last year included those in key campaign battleground states like Arkansas, New Mexico, Florida, Iowa and Michigan.

Crafting a legacy

Under Rove's direction, the White House is looking toward 2008 and beyond to rebuild a Republican majority that will keep intact Bush legacy items like the war on terrorism, the No Child Left Behind education policy and tax cuts.

To that end, the White House political machine is at work on the 2008 congressional elections, developing issues, preparing to raise money, and identifying vulnerable Republican incumbents with an eye toward replacing them in the primary with sturdier contenders.

The 2008 presidential campaign is also a focus, and more of a potential minefield for preservation of President Bush's role in history, since none of the Republican front-runners are Bush loyalists, to put it mildly.

Rove also has some proving to do. The political oracle, less than two weeks before the November election, chided an NPR interviewer for suggesting he was being overly optimistic about his party's election prospects, boasting that he was looking at 68 polls a week.

"I'm looking at all these (polls) and adding them up, and I add up to a Republican Senate and Republican House," Rove said at the time. "You may end up with a different math, but you're entitled to your math, I'm entitled to 'the' math."

A lightning rod

With
Democrats
controlling the House and Senate and threatening to unravel key Bush projects, Rove doesn't have much time to use the influence he still has left to shift the political dynamic his way.

Rove's effect in the short term can be seen in Bush's refusal to compromise or negotiate with Democratic leaders on issues like the pending supplemental war funding bill and instead aiming to govern with the help of the Republican minority.

If Rove feels at all chastened by his party's defeat in November, he certainly isn't letting on.

Last month, he told a gathering of Michigan Republicans that Iraq is a defining issue of this generation — and he conflated the war with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a device that has largely gone out of style with more scrupulous political commentators.

"Nobody wants a war. Nobody who has a family member serving in the military wants a war," Rove said, according to newspaper reports. "But I bet every one of you knows with absolute precision where you were on the morning of 9/11 when we were hit and we got in a war."

A complex character

Rove's role in the firing of the eight federal prosecutors, including the installation of a trusted Rove protege to replace the fired U.S. attorney in Arkansas, has once again put the so-called Boy Wonder in the spotlight.

He is still a lightning rod for partisans — Republicans love him and he is in demand as a speaker. Democrats loathe him and blame him for some of what they believe is wrong with the White House.

Referring to the 1991 movie City Slickers, in which the character Curly said the secret of life is one thing, Rove said, "That's not the way politics really is. Politics is a, you know, complex equation."